Clean energy potential on reservations could be a game-changer for tribes and nation

Southwest Tribal Energy Consortium members tour an Arizona Public Service Solar Thermal Facility. Native American tribes around the country are developing traditional and renewable energy sources, and some advocates say they are playing an integral role in building America’s energy future.

Carolyn Stewart/Courtesy of Red Mountain Energy Pa

Meteorological towers, such as this Laguna Pueblo meteorological tower installation on Seama Mesa, are used to monitor weather conditions around energy production facilities so that steps can be taken to protect equipment.

Jessica Riehl/Special to The Durango Herald

This hybrid solar-wind system, developed by the Sacred Power Corp., helps power the home of Monica and Nathanial Johnson on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. Before it was installed, residents of the home had lived without electricity for decades.

CLIFF VANCURA/Durango Herald

The United States pays a huge price for its dependence on foreign oil, both in dollars drained from consumers’ pocketbooks and in loss of control of its destiny.

So, for the financial well-being of the nation and in the interest of national security, President Barack Obama has made development of alternative domestic energy sources a cornerstone of his energy policy. That commitment is backed with millions of federal dollars, some of which has gone to many of the hundreds of Native American tribes sitting on resources needed to bring alternative sources of electricity flowing to homes and businesses.

“Overall, there’s a huge resource on Indian lands all over the country,” said William Brown, of New Mexico-based Sage West consultants & The Climate Reality project.

Brown said if just one-third of the solar capability on the Navajo nation’s vast reservation lands were developed, it would produce enough energy “to power the entire nation through the rest of this century.” Wind resources of tribal lands on the Great Plains from Texas to Canada could power 50 million homes.

“That’s a vast amount of energy,” Brown said.

If the resources on the nation’s tribal lands, otherwise referred to as “Indian Country,” are heavily developed, it could mean lower rates for electricity, new directions for the nation’s energy industry and a new economic reality for some Native American tribes and their neighboring communities.

Federal officials and tribes see the potential impacts, too. And many in the energy world, including Tracey LeBeau, director for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, say the Southern Ute Indian Tribe provided the spark that helped ignite a fire for energy production and potential in Indian Country nationwide.

While the Utes spent decades developing, managing and profiting from development of oil and gas resources on their lands, other Native American tribes have taken note. The Southern Utes showed the world that it’s possible for sovereign tribal nations, no matter how small, to gain the training, technical expertise and business savvy needed to turn their lands into energy-producing and economic-development machines.

“Historically, tribes have not been in control of developing their resources,” said Carolyn Stewart, managing partner of Red Mountain Energy, a national consulting firm that aids tribes and investors in developing renewable energy resources on tribal lands. “That has been changing over the last 15 to 20 years, and the Southern Utes were the model for that change.”

Since 1994, the Department of Energy has invested more than $45 million in more than 200 tribal energy projects, Lebeau said. And millions more were spent last year to help tribes explore, develop and produce energy from their lands.

In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy doled out another $6.5 million to fund 19 “clean-energy” projects in Indian Country in February as part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to strengthening partnerships with Tribal Nations and supporting alternative eenergy development. Among the projects funded were a $347,000 Navajo Nation study of the viability of installing 4,000 megawatts of solar power and other renewable energy technologies on 22,000 acres of land in northwestern New Mexico.

Grants are just the beginning

New federal programs, including the DOE’s Strategic Technical Assistance Response Team, have been launched to advance clean-energy generation in Indian Country. LeBeau said the department also is designing energy-development training programs for tribal leaders. Other federal agencies, such as the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, are shifting focus and creating programs to aid tribal efforts to develop renewable-energy technologies on their lands.

William Anderson, chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes in Nevada, lauded the support his tribe has received from federal agencies, including the BIA and Department of Interior. The tribe is developing two large-scale solar projects that would produce up to 600 megawatts of energy on 3,000 acres of their reservation.

“(Those agencies) have been a big help in pushing our projects forward,” Anderson said. “And because of it, we’re going to set a precedent in Indian Country with one of the largest solar developments to date.”

Brown said the work is indicative of a national trend.

“The longer trend is toward cleaner energy where the fuel is free and abundant,” Brown said. “It’s just a matter of tapping into that in a big way to make the transition from fossil fuels.”

And officials say the energy development potential, particularly in the Southwest and Mountain regions of the United States, is significant.

Challenges meet solutions

Investors and energy companies aren’t blind to the opportunities in Indian Country, but there are many hurdles. Some industry watchers, including George Richardson, a local geologist and founder of the U.S. Energy Policy Coalition, even say the hurdles are so many and so daunting that it may be impossible for America’s homes and businesses to run entirely using renewable energy.

“But we have to try,” Richardson said.

So tribes and the U.S. government are working to systematically break down the barriers.

For example:

The nation lacks critical infrastructure and a comprehensive policy for renewable energy. And the power grids aren’t set up for a system that deploys only renewable energy sources, whether from tribal, public or private land. But a new $1.5 billion plan by Tres Amigas to link the nation’s three energy grids in New Mexico could bring solutions. (The Navajo Nation is a possible investor in the project.) And the Department of Energy is working with other federal agencies tofind ways to accelerate development of transmission projects, which currently can take up to a decade to site and permit.

Tribes have their own governing bodies and may not have a formal judicial system. And because of tribes’ sovereignty, federal laws may provide limited remedies for dealing with business disputes. But those issues can be addressed with good contracts. Investors willing to navigate that process can reap a reward because renewable projects can often be accomplished quickly on native lands.

The market for renewable energy can be unpredictable. Many power companies are buying only the renewable capacity they’re required to under state and federal mandates. The buying stops when the mandates are met. And often, potential buyers such as government agencies and utilities prefer to buy “paper credits,” rather than actual energy. But some states are creating and adjusting rules around paper credits, or Renewable Energy Credits, to remove the unfair competitive advantage paper credits can have over actual tribal energy.

Federal procurement policies also have slowed some energy deployment in Indian Country. But LeBeau said her department is looking at the policies and will provide guidance to other federal agencies. The energy Policy Act of 2005 allows federal agencies to procure tribal energy, and it even suggests preference in those cases where federal agencies can tap in, she said.

Land held in trust by the federal government for tribes also is stalling projects, tribal and industry officials said.

But new tribal land leasing rules give the Bureau of Indian Affairs just two months to approve proposed projects for Indian lands held in federal trust unless there is a “compelling” reason not to act.

Because tribes are tax-exempt, they are ineligible for many government incentives, which are tax-based. So consultants and private investors, who can use the credits, have formed creative partnerships to close the gap.

Despite the obstacles, the future is clear to alternative-energy advocates.

Brown said one only has to look at how the United States lags behind other countries in renewable-energy development to see what’s ahead.

“This market is something that could change quickly once the message gets out there,” Brown said. “This is the beginning of a multidimensional process of transforming our entire society.”

LeBeau called it “thenext generation of energy.”

hscofield@durangoherald.com

Energy source development

Energy today and in the future is likely to come from numerous sources. Efforts to develop those sources are under way in Indian Country and on private land, and hundreds of thousands of jobs are likely to be created over the next decade by the development. Here is a brief look at some sources under development:SolarSolar power is delivered in three primary ways – small solar-thermal units for hot water, rooftop photovoltaic units and large power plants that generate electricity.Solar development faces challenges. Because the sun sets at night and can be intermittent during the day, better systems for storing and delivering captured energy are needed. Production costs also are higher than for efficient coal plants.Biofuel/BiomassThese energies are produced from living organisms or organic and food-waste products. Algae and bacteria are among the many newly emerging biofuel sources because they do not require large land areas and provide constant and intense energy supply. Forest, lumber, paper mill, crop, landfill and sewage wastes can be used for biomass and biofuel energies, providing electricity and transportation fuels while reducing environmental burdens.Among the promising development projects around the country are efforts by Solix Biofuels, in which the Southern Ute Indian Tribe is a key investor and owner. Also promising in the field is the development of Helioculture, which is a process that has the possibility of producing a hydrocarbon-based fuel using brackish water, nutrients, photosynthetic organisms, carbon dioxide and sunlight. The process could produce 20,000 gallons of fuel per acre. And turning trash to gas, or energy treasure, has become part of this renewable-energy category, Countless efforts are under way to sequester gas emitted by decomposing trash in America’s landfills. About 90 percent of America’s purchases reportedly land in a landfill within six months.WindWind power is the most developed of the renewable-energy sources. It has been used in its current form for more than two decades.Wind energy is an intermittent source, so energy-storage technologies or supplements are necessary. Further development could create more than 50,000 jobs nationwide, particularly for trade workers and displaced manufacturing workers. Wind power is expected to grow to more than 6 percent of the nation’s energy mix by 2030. The cost of wind-power production is higher than that of efficient coal plants, but turbines in recent years have become more compact and efficient. Further efficiency also could be reaped with offshore wind farms, because larger turbines that produce more energy can be used.GeothermalGeothermal energy generates a reliable and constant supply of electricity from high-grade underground hydrothermal resources in seven Western states. The United States is the global leader in geothermal generating capacity.Energy production costs for new geothermal plants are comparable to existing hydro, nuclear and coal plants. And the power source is constant.Geothermal energy production is expected to grow significantly in the next 50 years but is likely to account for less than 5 percent of the nation’s energy mix in the long run. CoalCoal is the most abundant domestic fossil fuel worldwide and more than 1 billion tons are produced annually in the United States. More than half of the nation’s energy comes from coal and 90 percent of the mined resources stay in this country.Coal is one of the cheapest forms of energy and is the largest source of electricity in the country but has drawn critics because of negative impacts its extraction and use can have on the environment.Coal mining employs about 130,000 people with an estimated three additional jobs created elsewhere in the economy for every direct mining job.There are about 600 coal-fired power plants and 1,100 coal-fired manufacturing plants in the nation.Natural GasNatural gas development in the United States has the potential to become a leading energy option as new technologies continue to allow extraction from unconventional reservoirs with hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.Fracking has faced controversy across the country in recent years, with critics voicing concerns over the types of chemicals and amounts of water used in the extraction process, as well as complaints about emissions from production and potential land, air and water contamination. But carbon emissions linked to natural gas are nearly half that of coal.NuclearNuclear power harnesses the heat of radioactive materials to produce steam for power generation. The technology provides about 20 percent of the nation’s power through 100 generation units in the United States, but that figure is expected to decline as old plants are retired. Nuclear plants use large quantities of water and must be shut down every 18 to 24 months to remove and replace used uranium fuel rods. In 2008, U.S. uranium ore reserves were estimated at more than one billion pounds, with the reserves located primarily in Wyoming and New Mexico. Sources: U.S. Energy Policy Coalition, naturalgas.org, U.S. Department of Energy, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, National Mining Association, Dave Nulton, American Wind Energy Association, Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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Michael Mauney/Courtesy of Red Mountain Energy Par

Southwest Tribal Energy Consortium members tour an Arizona Public Service Solar Thermal Facility. Native American tribes around the country are developing traditional and renewable energy sources, and some advocates say they are playing an integral role in building America’s energy future.

Carolyn Stewart/Courtesy of Red Mountain Energy Pa

Meteorological towers, such as this Laguna Pueblo meteorological tower installation on Seama Mesa, are used to monitor weather conditions around energy production facilities so that steps can be taken to protect equipment.

Jessica Riehl/Special to The Durango Herald

This hybrid solar-wind system, developed by the Sacred Power Corp., helps power the home of Monica and Nathanial Johnson on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. Before it was installed, residents of the home had lived without electricity for decades.